The Blood in the Snow
by SimonJester479
Summary: A field dig in the Antartic wilderness uncovers some unusual relics and Dr. Brennan is called in to provide her expertise. As the team continues the dig what is uncovered leads to horror. Meanwhile Zack's haunting dreams lead him to a terrible place.
1. Discovery

**AN: First as always I do not own Bones or the characters within, nor do I own the elements of H. P. Lovecraft that I included, but I do own the dialogue and plot that my rather crazy little brain has thought up of. Technically this might be classified as a crossover but since there is no Lovecraft section I decided to stick it in Bones because of our favorite heros' roles. To all my old fans and readers I think that this is a bit of a change of pace from my old vein and venue of writing and to any new readers out there I heartily welcome you to my little corner of the vast world of writing. Now to all those who peruse these digits and words I suggest pulling up a chair, popping some popcorn, pouring a strong drink, and turning off all the lights. If you've read some of my other works then you know that I do love a good bit of blood and horror and given the subject matter at hand in this one well… let's just say that I'm pulling out all the stops on my imagination and skill to bring you what I hope is a glorious work which you all write copious reviews for.**

_Have you ever heard the wind when it howls, I mean when it truly howls? Not wind that whispers secrets in the dark of night carrying the thoughts of long-forgotten lore and legend across the hearts and minds of men nor the shrill beatings of a tempest; mere anger and destruction is a pitiful thing one which a steady mind and stout heart can laugh back with the impunity of strength. No the question is have you heard the wind howl? Have you heard the secluded and endless torment of aeons of anguish lost forever; moments of unimaginable and terrible sensation trapped forever to wander the farthest outposts of humanity in the desolation of the wilderness._

_Wilderness is the correct terminology for this as it has long period in the human psyche of civilization. In the oldest languages and tongues of the races of man wilderness has meant a barren desolate and dangerous place. Eden and paradise were universally seen to be cultivated gardens where the strength and toil of man kept the beasts and terrors at bay. In ancient Hebrew and forgotten Persian, in the dialects of the land between the two-rivers and the mandate of the Han; it was a quest of civilization to push back the hold of the wilderness and to shape nature as a garden. However as far and as energetically humanity pushes there is always wilderness at the edges and the darkness contained within remains. Here the folly of man arises._

_There is an ingrained, almost self-destructive, desire deep within humanity to "know;" curiosity truly is a double-edged sword as it leads humanity to both the greatest heights and the most terrible depths..._

_What makes it really interesting is when both happen at the same time._

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"Blast it's cold out there." flakes of snow and chunks of ice cascade off of a red-orange snow suit and onto the black plastic mats of the inner doorway as the wearer flails extravagantly to rid himself of the encumbering chill. From everything that he had been led to believe the weather in this region was supposed to be fairly calm so the recent wind storms were simply incredible.

Even through the heavy flaps of the field tent the wind beats and tears against the chilled air within; no amount of heating can keep the temperature within the tents to climbing to any level approaching comfort; drinks always freeze after a time and keeping skin exposed for long times just begged for frostbite. The light thumps upon the small field table from his shed gloves seem insignificant next to the cacophony outside; a whispered curse about the chill inside is swallowed up from a sudden clatter from a series of precariously stacked cooking utensils being knocked over by the incessant attentions of the wind.

His louder curse is cut short by a flickering of the lights within the tent. For a fraction of a second his ice blue eyes betray a hint of concern and his weathered face pales even more from it's normal light complexion. Quickly his face returns to it's normal granite glare; not so much glare as look, he thinks ruefully at the fact that people say that he has three facial expressions and all of those are the same.

"Damn generator keeps dieing out here, the cold just eats through the thing." cautiously; in the past the lights went out completely plunging the confines of the tent into a corporeal and thick darkness, he picks his way over to a small work table which he keeps under lock and key at all times. With a calm and resolved countenance he opens the heavy steel lid, pushing it back until the contents are clearly illuminated by the naked overhead bulbs.

The contents are not what one would usually associate with the amount of steel needed to house them. A few packets of paper, some hammers and hand tools common to any geologist, a GPS, some spare batteries, and a curious piece of stone.

Calloused fingers pick up and examine the stone for it indeed was the very reason that this expedition into the heart of Antarctica was formed; led by the Miskatonic University of Arkham, Massachusetts with funding from a variety of scholarly institutions, the finding of this simple stone sparked a new level of international attention onto the forgotten continent seldom before seen.

It's fine green soap-stone infused with flecks of gold and black was formed into an irregular six pointed star but with no evidence of tool marks science was baffled to explaining such a phenomenon. The material was still elusive in understanding let alone defining and categorizing; material analysts and every geologist on the planet was at a loss to what the stone actually was. Battery upon battery of tests returned no results, not even inconclusive results, just simply no results. It was as if the stone didn't exist.

The only test that returned any sort of data was when several physicists at MIT analyzed the stone's electromagnetic profile; the results were unusual to say the least. It was as if the stone drew in electromagnetic energy from the area around it and absorbed it; to what purpose no one can figure out but many speculate.

His contemplations on the nature of the stone were suddenly interrupted by a sudden gush of cold air into the tent, quickly looking up to spot a rather scrawny fellow in a dark blue snow suit; his goggles fogged up and his breath steaming as he shed what snow there was on his person.

"Danforth what have you got for me?" Danforth immediately stopped trying to clean himself off and almost stumbled over himself to stand up.

"We found something Professor Dyer."

"What exactly did you find?"

"I-I don't know Professor it's some sort of... mummy-fossil."

"Danforth you're telling me that as the best graduate student at the Miskatonic University the best description that you can give me is mummy-fossil?" Danforth cringed a bit at the sparkle of fire in Professor Dyer's cold eyes; it was a true honor to work with the man but at times he could be more than a little unhinged and intimidating. However in this Danforth knew that he could stand his ground.

"Yes Professor, we uncovered a fossil but it's unlike anything that we've ever seen before; the tissue of the specimen seems to be dead but not turned to stone like a normal fossil would but we found it in a strata which would suggest that anything but fossilization is impossible due to the age of the rock around it and because of the fossilized humanoid bones that we found with it."

At this Dyer stopped his, curiosity piqued; could it be that they just uncovered something as ancient as the dinosaurs but pristine enough to... the possibilities were astounding, and the bones...

But to analyze the find... they weren't equipped to examine it here in these wretched conditions.

A spark of genius.

"Danforth prepare the specimen for shipment to the Jeffersonian, I know several archeologists and biologists there as well as a rather brilliant forensic anthropologist. We'll document our findings and send them a preliminary report tonight, then we'll prepare the shipment in the morning."

"Of course professor."

As Danforth left the tent the sounds of the wind mixed with the barking of the dogs filtered into the tent. Dyer regretted the necessity of the dogs; he had two fine huskies at home himself and didn't like using them for work, but the extreme cold broke down the majority of the vehicles save for the big haulers. Dyer wondered why the dogs were barking so much as he could hear them even through the snow shelter that they were in to protect them from the unusual winds. Deciding that it was probably nothing Dyer merely heaved a sigh and proceeded to gather his tools to examine the specimen in the lab tent on the other side of the camp site.

As he proceeded to leave the tent out of the corner of his eye he noticed that the stone seemed to emit a curious sort of glimmer and sheen. When he turned to look closer the stone just looked as curious and unfathomable as it always was. Shrugging he made his way out into the darkening night to the sound of a howling wind and an increasingly frenzied barking from the dogs.

**AN: Review please**


	2. Awakening

**AN: Thanks all for the kind reviews so far, and while I don't own the characters I will try to make Booth sexy for you rice117. As for all the shippers out there I won't promise much B/B in this fic but then again in this genre you can't really ignore it totally but just remember that I hunt fluff-bunnies with a double-barreled shotgun of cynicism. For those of you who get scared easily I suggest reading on with great attention because it's best that you face your fears. Anyway, enjoy.**

_Curiosity is a curious thing; the drive to delve and dig into the unknown is a well known feeling and undertaking in human behavior but seldom do we ask ourselves why dig? Why are we curious? Is it because we are total in our understanding of ourselves and our impulses, our desires, and actions? Is it simple, to put it bluntly arrogance that drives us out from the familiar and into the darkness? Or is it the fact that we don't know enough about ourselves save for the fact that what we do know is enough to frighten us away from introspection, to drive us into the darkness out fear? The old adage of: "curiosity killed the cat but satisfaction brought it back" is an unusually dark quip for did satisfaction bring the cat back or did it revive curiosity so that it could kill again?_

_For all those who are curious remember that nature and fate are determined to bring about a resolution to the question as much as the one that is curious._

_And death is the ultimate and final resolution..._

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It's odd the things that run through your mind at times, Professor Dyer mused as he, for lack of a better word; waded through the snow and wind towards the large lab tent on the western edge of the camp. With weather this bad it would be normal to think about how cold it was or how strong the winds were but all that ran through his mind was: "Did we remember to order crunchy peanut butter for the next supply drop?"

Such thoughts were quickly brushed away from his mind as he stumbled over a particularly dense snow drift; face-planting into a three foot pile of snow is enough to jolt anyone's mind from even the sweet sweet taste of peanut butter.

As he flailed about sputtering the powdery snow from his lips he noticed that the snow pen around the dogs was beginning to cave in southern portion of the shelter; ice and snow crumbling down on the . Odd he thought, but a problem that required immediate attention. Quickly stumbling over to one of the nearby tents, narrowly avoiding knocking down a section of the piled up snow wind break that the men had put up on the outside, he burst through the flaps yelling:

"McLaughlin, Khon, Veldhouse grab those tools and shore up the dog's shelter, the wind is knocking it down around them!"

McLaughlin was the first to jump up and grab a snow-ax and shovel; the rather stout Scotsman was particularly devoted to those dogs and would often act more like a veterinarian rather than the experienced mechanic that he was. His coal black beard was a stark contrast to his two companions' blonde clean shaven appearances; Khon and Veldhouse were the digs two drill men hired off from one of the many oil rigs in the North Sea. The two Swedes had an almost manic phobia of getting stuck up in any sort of mechanical device, rumor was that the two worked with a man whose beard had gotten stuck in one of the many gears of a drilling apparatus; there are some things that you can't argue with and getting one's face ripped off by a machine going at 10000 rpm is one of them.

"Damn it!" Khon grumbled, "Thats the second time in the last hour that we've gone out there and rebuilt that damn wall."

"Yeah," agreed Veldhouse "the wind has to be insanely powerful to be doing this but the thing is that none of the other snow shelters that we've set up are crumbling in the slightest!"

"I just don't get it."

"Yeah."

Dyer simply stands there contemplative as the two grumble and gather up their tools, why is it that only the dogs' shelter is the one that is collapsing? Oh well, he shrugs as he makes his way back out into the arctic twilight, maybe there is some sort of micro fracture under the wall that keeps sucking away bits of snow but is small enough to not swallow up a man. There were far too many of those chasms and fractures around here Dyer thought darkly, only last week they lost a man and his sledge out in the foothills of near the mountain that they were digging at. One minute he was out on the ice and snow and the next...

"We never even found the hole that sucked him up." Dyer whispered to himself as he made his way to the lab tent. There were so many ways to die on this continent but plummeting to one's death in a subterranean chasm ranked up there with the worst fears that any of the researchers had.

Finally Dyer got to the lab tent. Easily the largest structure in the small camp the snow lined "keep" also served as the expedition's storage and supply area. Outside the tent walled off in their own little snow cubicles were four diesel powered generators whose loud roars were competing quite gamely with the infernal noise of the wind. Those things were under near constant surveillance as the cold wore down on even these specially designed models; the expedition had gone through two already and they'd only been there a month.

As he walked through the tent... airlock was a more appropriate than flap in this case as there were half a dozen seals to work through, the brightness of the lights inside caused his eyes to water. The twilight of an arctic winter meant that they operated under extremely dark conditions during even the daylight hours; special permits and copious amounts of insurance paid to keep the operation working during this time of the year when they were nearing the point where the sun could no longer give them any sort of aid.

"Danforth have you dispatched that information to the Jeffersonian yet?" Business first Dyer thought, the percolating coffee maker on the table near the transmitting hub could wait.

"I'm sending it now professor, the transmitter was acting up and I had to fiddle with it for a while before I could send up the files."

Communications were extremely maintenance intensive in this neck of the world if only because there were so few satellites in Geo-synchronous orbit over the South Pole; rather than rely on a sketchy satellite up-link they sent messages through a series of relay towers and repeaters that the expedition had set up along their route to the main research station. This allowed a reliable means of communications but also required that constant trips to each of the relay towers be sent to keep them running especially since there wasn't any possibility of using solar panels to power the stations.

"Let me look over the files first before you send them. I want to know what our colleagues know so that when they comment on our findings I can be in some position to answer them."

Danforth rolled his eyes as he knew the real reason that Professor Dyer wanted to read over the files. A year back Danforth had sent out some uncensored correspondence which contained some pictures of some of the grad students using several artifacts as containers for beer pong causing much embarrassment to the Miskatonic's Geology and Archeology departments. Suffice it to say, Danforth was no longer allowed to hit the "send" button of the expedition's email account any more.

Professor Dyer noted that the majority of the information that was being sent were digital pictures of the finds in question most significantly of the humanoid bones being sent to Dr. Brennan at the Jeffersonian. Of the mummy-fossil there was only a cursory mention of the find as Dr. Bintliff the attached biologist was only now starting his examination; his rather bald head reflecting a harsh glare into Dyer's eyes even from across the room as the professor tried to read the text on the small screen.

"Alright send it Danforth." Professor Dyer said as he made his way over to the examination table which held the strangest object that Dyer had ever seen in his life.

"Ah Henry so glad of you to join me I was just about to make the external survey of the specimen."

Dr. Brian Bintliff was a slender fellow, his lankiness was almost accentuated with his closely shaven head which made his skull seem far too big for his neck giving him an almost alien look from a distance. The gloves on his hands were of a special make as he had lost his left pinky finger during a vehicle accident in years past; when his jeep rolled over on the side of I-5 his finger had been crushed and pulled off when his hand got pinned in the frame. To compensate for this he had special sets of gloves made for himself; everything from surgical gloves to gardening gloves.

"That is quite an unusual specimen Brian, I first thought that on this expedition you'd be more of a consultant because anything we'd find would be fossilized but this... well you must be jumping for joy at the opportunity." the amused look on Dyer's face hid only the slightest hint of jealousy towards his friend and colleague, after all there is a certain amount of pride in any adventure.

"Oh indeed for the longest time I thought that I'd come here and eat you out of all of your peanut butter while reading my graphic novels while you did all the work but now, this is quite an exciting opportunity." Brian's excitement was almost bubbling at the surface, from being an almost liability to the center of attention in mere hours; it was a heady brew indeed.

"Well what can you tell me so far?"

"Well as you can see the specimen is quite unusual, from all the features that I've seen so far I make it to be some form of gigantic tuber, for lack of a better word. Six feet end to end, three and five-tenths feet central diameter, tapering to one foot at each end. Like a barrel with five bulging ridges in place of staves. Brown in color with what appears to be a greenish foot roots along the base, akin to a starfish."

Taking up a magnifying glass Dr. Bintliff examined the specimen with far more care and precision. The minutes trickled by like thick molasses as he carefully went over the exterior; save for some muttering the doctor. made no sound plunging the tent into a curious void of buffeting arctic winds and heated anticipation. After what seemed like an eternity the doctor straightened back up:

"It's curious that a plantlike thing that this appears to be has such leathery skin, much more like hide than anything but it has radial symmetry from what I can tell making it plantlike rather than an animal's characteristic bilateral symmetry. And these grooves," he traced a series of converging lines which started about 200 cm down from the "head" which all met up at the center of the top "are most peculiar. They feel quite muscular in fact much like a closed eyelid in stark contrast to say a closed Venus Flytrap which feels much... smoother. Here help me roll it over so I can examine the underside."

Dyer moved over to the side of the table and the two men grunted with the effort required to roll the damn thing on to the other side as it was much heavier than appearances would lead one to believe.

"Christ the thing must weigh 300 lbs!"

"It must have an extremely dense network of internal... organs for lack of a better word."

"Uh Doc, what the hell are those?"

"What?"

"Those." Dyer pointed to a series of peculiar growths along the back about two thirds of the way up the specimen which barely protruded from the ridges of the beast..

"Hmmm." The doctor proceeded, with meticulous care to poke and prod the masses eliciting a result which quite literally knocked him on his ass.

All Dyer saw was a violent... spasm in which the masses exploded out flinging the hapless biologist flat upon the ground.

"Brian are you alright?" concern was evident, this sort of thing was unheard of in an examination.

"I'm fine but tell me what the hell just happened?"

"I've no... what the hell are those?"

"The masses... they've opened up..."

From where there were once packed masses of leathery tissue were now a pair of... wings.

"This is unlike any creature I've ever seen outside of legends and fantasy. It must be some sort of... animal what with the hide and wings but... it has no apparent sensory organs or feeding orifices... my God those wings are nearly 7 feet long! They must have been tucked up underneath the ridges and furrows of the torso." at the moment these wings drooped onto the floor on either side of the table the roots spaced perfectly on opposite ends of the... thing.

"Doctor, Professor, I think I know what it is."

Both turned towards a rather scared and shaking Danforth, they had both forgotten his presence in the room.

"I-I remember reading about creatures like this, in the restricted section of the Miskatonic library archives. Some passages of _The Necronomicon _by the "Mad Arab" Abdul Alhazred mention ancient creatures like this..." The boy was sweating at this point.

Dyer and Bintliff just stared at him, of course they knew about that dark book, it was a rare manuscript rarely mentioned in polite company because of the fantastic and horrible things that it contained. Only a few copies were left in the world of that terrible and forbidden book but the Miskatonic had deep in it's collection a copy of Olaus Wormius' Latin translation kept safe and secure. Though only a few believed any of the ridiculous and fantastic stories contained within there was no denying that those who read too much of that book tended to end up with bad fates often going insane and clawing out their own eyes. This was one of the few books that both the Roman and Orthodox churches would still burn without hesitation or regret even in this modern world.

"They were called Elder things, an ancient race of creatures who populated the Earth billions of years ago."

"Stop that nonsense right there Danforth such things are impossible." Dyer harshly spat.

Suddenly the exam table shook.

All three men turned around not believing their eyes; eyes which showed awe, disbelief, and fear... definitely fear.

And then they no longer were afraid.

They were terrified.

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"Damn it's like the dogs are trying to break out of the damn shelter!" Khon screamed above the increasing pitch of the wind.

"I know I just don't get it!" McLaughlin replied.

"We're going to be out here all night!" Veldhouse muttered as he kept shoveling snow and ice onto the wall for the others to pack down.

The three of them had been working at an almost feverish pace for the past hour ever since Professor Dyer had told them about the collapsing shelter. No matter how hard they worked the wall kept falling in and the dogs kept wailing and barking like damned souls before the Apocalypse.

Their work was suddenly interrupted by a series of loud shrieks from the lab tent.

"What the hell was that?" they all said simultaneously as they stood up and stared at the tent. Suddenly the wall around the dog pen collapsed and the men were knocked over by the pack of dogs as they fled howling into the wilderness. All three flailed about trying to protect themselves from the flurry of claws and teeth as the dogs ran through them as if rabid and mad. After several minutes and a frenzy of curses the men picked themselves up from the collapsed snowdrift.

"This is madness!"

"What the hell happened to the dogs?!"

"Forget the dogs what happened in the lab?!"

McLaughlin and Veldhouse both turned to where Khon was pointing, there was a massive tear in the side of the lab tent and the snow embankment around it was totally demolished.

The three of them hurried over to the opening of the tent and looked inside to see the entire place thrown into disarray.

Tables, papers, the wireless array, and dozens of sealed boxes tossed about as if hit by a hurricane. Already the snow and wind was whipping into the interior and plunging the semi warm tent into the status of meat locker...

Meat locker being the operative word given what happened to the occupants.

Dr. Bintliff was lying prostrate on the overturned exam table, his coat and back sliced open as if by a scalpel. His spine and shoulder blades clearly visible and pearly white from the red gore of his still steaming corpse. Curious it was that there was no blood on the exposed bone, almost as if it had been... sucked off by some sort of tube. His legs and arms still spasmodic in their death throes, his face frozen in a scream; eyes blank with a reflection of death.

Professor Dyer was spread eagle upon the floor his abdomen split open down the middle and rib cage... removed. Not ripped apart as if by a beast but carefully sliced open as if in an autopsy. The bones were piled up next to the body clean and devoid of any meat or blood. As Veldhouse moved closer to examine the body he noticed that the entire abdominal cavity was... empty. The organs had been removed and were no where to be seen.

Danforth was even more pitiful in his agony. His entire skeleton below the waist was exposed, the bone clean of blood and flesh, his eyes and moans told McLaughlin that he was still alive, for the moment. The blood dripping from his amputation point was slowly spreading across the ground, steaming and freezing into red crystals on the treated plastic floor.

"What happened here?" McLaughlin asked, he knew that it was too late for Danforth, if the shock wouldn't kill him then the cold would.

Danforth's mouth opened and closed, words still born coming to naught in describing the events which had just unfolded.

Finally with an inhuman strength and zeal Danforth grabbed McLaughlin by the collar with a frenzied look in his eye, McLaughlin tried to back away in fear but couldn't, he was paralyzed in place as were his companions who just stood on in terrified awe.

"_Ut resest non mortuus eternus recubo,_

_eum per insolitus diu vel nex intereo." _

With that last effort his skeleton broke and his still fleshy torso grasped and clawed fitfully against McLaughlin's legs. Danforth's blood freezing along his winter parka, the spittle from his mouth frothing and crystallizing along his cheeks; a delirious glee in his eyes bespoke of insanity that no mortal could imagine. His laughter chilling in a way that the winds outside could never hope to compare to.

McLaughlin slowly backed up from the deranged thing before him as it was no longer human save in the most esoteric sense. No sound save for Danforth's thrashings, gurgling, and laughter was made for several minutes until even the last lunatic strength was brought to heel; still the silence and disbelief was heavy upon the air.

"My God..." Khon muttered.

"God had nothing to do with this, look there on the floor." Veldhouse's finger was that of horrified accusation, where even though he knew what was what he could not bring himself to say it.

Khon and McLaughlin both looked at a sight which made the whole scene even more disturbing for sprinkled on the floor was a fain granulated powder similar but distinct to the intruding snow.

It was salt.

**AN: I hope that it was worth the read, review please.**


	3. Dreams

**AN: Once again I don't own Bones or HP Lovecraft blah blah polysyllabic-blah. I suppose a lot of you are a bit off put by my lack of any Bones characters save in passing but it was necessary to set the stage so if you will bear with me I assure you you will all see the objects of your temporal affection. Enjoy!**

_There are sacraments of evil as well as of good about us, and we live and move to my belief in an unknown world, a place where there are caves and shadows and dwellers in twilight. It is possible that man may sometimes return on the track of evolution, and it is my belief that an awful lore is not yet dead. -Arthur Machen_

In the sterile and empty darkness, silence of the basest and most dreadful sort suffocates the pitiful sounds of a broken soul as breath is squeezed through the cracked and dry skin of painfully pale lips. Hooded eyes conceal mirrors of a broken intelligence; skin drawn tight, a glow of pale phosphorescence in the tangibly thick blackness. The soft padding on the bed doesn't conceal the stiff hardness underneath for there are some things which can always be felt regardless of settings; a thin veneer of the simplest primer over the twisted, rusted metal of a broken monolith.

Suddenly the skin withdraws showing a flowing mix of white, gold, brown and red. The expanding pupils opening up to gather in all the fleeting elements of light that flee the encroaching darkness like frightened gray hares before the white foaming mouth of the ravenous wolf. The man cowers in the dark curled up in the fetal position with his eyes ever widening; pale soft fingers clutching and clawing at cold and clammy cheeks. Blood drains fast in the face of mounting terror.

He can hear the noises approaching; skittering within the walls, the scratching of claws and talons on the ancient innards of the dead structure holding the mortal prisons of mad souls. Logically he shouldn't feel fear, he knows this deep within himself but his rationality is slipping from him as the noises get louder; he can smell the fetid and corrupt smell of bleak sickness and death's hand-maidens. The door to the enclosed darkness shudders under a sudden impact, mere inches of metal and plastic groaning under impossible strain and violence. The chittering and clacking of talons, the squeals of depraved vermin; a thousand assailants and a thousand variables all conspiring to subvert the crumbling foundations of a fortress of imperturbable logic.

Deep within himself he knows that this isn't real, he knows that this is impossible but his own assumed faith tells him that it must be so; empiricism used to undermine itself through the deliberate machinations of forces which defy reason. Soundless screams emanate, rasping along a parched throat only to be swallowed up from whence they came. Fear inspires a paralysis of conscious movement within the meaty shell of a lunatic mind; the bed rattles under the flailing spasms as he tries to hide from the omniscient marauders whose approach inspires dread.

Unknowable force pummels the door as bends and cracks spread in an insane spiderweb along the cold steel. Cracks appear ushering in a luminous aurora of lights whose intrusion causes even the darkness to flee in on itself. The cold comfort of hazy purples, blues, and reds chills the air; ice forms, falls, and shatters on the floor in a cascade of glimmering shards whose edges slice the cool tile floor etching eldrich sigils under the guide of an invisible hand. The scratches within the walls grow louder and more insistent; the man's eyes see lines appear in the walls as the assault continues with tireless abandon.

The cold sweat from his brow drips into his eyes but blinking is impossible as his eyes are fixated on the intruding lights; the nebulous haze showing brief glimpses into realms of impossible and terrible description.

A figure flashes in the haze.

The luminous green of sickly description; glassy eyes of a gangrenous corpse leap from the void to grasp the man's shrieking form. A six pointed star burning with devilish fury emblazoned upon a rotting breast.

His eyes shut as pain shoots from his neck; bright ruby seeps over the yellow tarnished ivory of a decrepit violator.

His eyes open...

Dr. Addy sits up suddenly on his bed clutching his throat, the pain still vivid and present; uncomfortable stabbing pressure constricts his screams. His eyes and hair are wild as he looks around his room, the pleasant light of a morning sun illuminates the rather comfortable abode; the gleaming titles of countless tomes line the walls providing the foundations that he needs. Gasping he returns to his senses:

"A dream, it means nothing. It's not logical."

Stumbling over to the cheery white porcelain sink basin he twists gleaming chrome spigot; his eyes follow the swirling water as it flows around and around. As he splashes water over his face he studiously avoids looking into the mirror for he has learned. Many times he has had this dream; his sense of cause and affect has not been affected. He knows that if he were to look up in the mirror he would only see himself in a haunted sleep deprived state.

He knew that he would see the marks on his neck, raised and puckered white scar tissue still clammy and warm with dripping spittle.

**************************************************************************

As the sun broke over the waking city Dr. Brennan came to the conclusion that she had burnt enough of the midnight oil, and a considerable sum of the oil reserved for other times of the day. She can't help it as a yawn escapes her lips, as her eyes close the unbearable scratching of demanding sleep feels better and more insistent than an amorous lover's caress. She muses that normally Booth would be here to demand that she take a break if not, as a hidden grin sneaks across her face, bodily remove her from her office and any semblance of work. Her sigh is one more akin to regret than relief that he isn't here to do such a thing, only the last week he was called off to assist with some sort of major case brewing out in rural Virginia. His presence is... comforting and sorely missed.

She frowns at how he could barely tell her anything about why he had to go or what he was doing there, the few times that he called her were short and evasive and too often they started to argue over the situation. "We're partners damn it!" She thinks to herself. He should be able to tell her these things so she wouldn't be concerned. She immediately regrets such thoughts as they open up a whole floodgate of emotions stemming from his faked death; no matter how long it has been the wounds are still ripe and raw.

"I'm sure he's fine and he has his reasons for keeping me in the dark." her words are calm and rational but the inadvertent glare on her face tells volumes more.

Delving back into the work at hand she continues to examine the pictures sent to her from Dr. Dyer's dig in Antarctica. Here even with her expertise she admits that she is confused for with the information at hand the bones in the pictures are in many respects human, most likely one of the proto-human precursors, but the fact that they were found in a dig surrounded with fossils from the pre-Cambrian era... Unfortunately her inquiries and requests for the bones to be sent to the Jeffersonian for examination have been met with uncomfortable silence. The expedition contact at the Miskatonic said that they were experiencing a series of communications malfunctions due to a series of unusual storms in the region but the length of the blackout was beginning to reek of wrongness.

Suddenly she stands up and begins to pace her office, since when did she "smell" wrongness from a perfectly understandable situation? Her's was the realm of logic not of intuition, that was Booth's area of expertise. Her eyes dart over to her phone resting on her desk, a simple call...

Fiercely she resists the siren call, Booth obviously has things to do that don't involve her and he can't be bothered to let her know about them, which is perfectly alright because... because...

The moisture that she blinks back is from her yawn and exhaustion, the fire within herself spurts higher in spite with a renewed determination to do work.

"So why do I feel hurt?" She wonders...

*******************************************************************************

"Why is it whenever I come to this state I find myself interacting with the strangest people?"

"Agent Booth if that is your comment on me and my team I find that the most appropriate response to that is 'Go punch yourself in the throat.'"

Agent Booth and Agent Ngyuen both glared at each other in a moment of, to what an outsider can only describe as, the most bitter sharing of mutual loathing.

Which in turn made the sudden burst of shared laughter all the more startling and unnerving.

"So Booth do I need to remind you of the stakes here?" Ngyuen's small dark face belied a hidden intelligence and low-cunning with a facade of humor.

"No I think I got it the first time." a smile betrayed his uneasiness; who wouldn't be uneasy given the situation?

All over the nation the FBI had been tracking an unusual amount of cult activity; kidnappings, ritual suicides, and various disturbances of the peace. The strangest thing was that the cults seemed to be moving about and migrating from "traditional stomping grounds" to various central localities. The largest and most disturbing migration had been taking place in the deep south with dozens of cults suddenly moving to the pine barrens many of whom are suspected to be associated with a rash of kidnappings amongst the rural population with at least 50 children suspected in their hands. With memories of WACO still fresh in the bureaus mind they didn't want a repeat of that fiasco and had called in agents from across the country to create a shock team to go in and break up the cult's activities in a sudden burst of activity rather than allow the situation to devolve into a standoff with HRT.

And Booth was that lucky guy selected to lead the 25 man assault team, the responsibility of all the on the ground actions would be his call.

"Alright Booth have your unit ready in two hours, we'll hit them at 2200." Agent Ngyuen says as he walks out leaving Booth alone at the situation table.

Booth looks over the map, the green light from the overhead lamp colors his face in an odd hue but it's worth it. Little do most people know but many maps made for the military and government, when viewed under green light form a three dimensional image of the ground that it depicts. Booth's eyes glaze over as his mind wanders and thinks to his strained "relationship" with Bones. The past week had affected their partnership in awkward ways, their few and fruitless phone calls had only brought up ghosts of his shame death and a series of arguments on trust. Booth knew that he was hurting Bones by not telling her everything but he knew that he was under extremely close scrutiny by security and if the suspects caught wind of the operation it could endanger almost 50 hostages.

Sighing he ran his hand through his hair as his frustration and anxiety mounted. Soon it would all be over, soon when this was done he could go back to DC and talk to Bones and get this whole situation between the two of them sorted out. "These cults are all the same," he muttered "a bunch of malcontent adolescents around a charismatic and deranged leader but instead of talking to flowers and trees these guys decided to kidnap little kids. This shouldn't be anything difficult because in all likelihood they'll be stoned off their asses when we break into their little camp ground."

Confident in success and a quick return to DC Booth left the room to finalize preparations shutting off the light and plunging the room into darkness.

**AN: Review please.**


	4. Uncovering

**AN:Exciting times up here on post, a murder/suicide with a gunman during lunch a mere week and a half after a suicide on the training course. That and with a complete charlie foxtrot with the holding company I'm in at the moment well lets just say that if I seem overly morbid/angry then you know why. And as a final note once again I haven't gotten the deed to any intellectual property just yet. Enjoy!**

_The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.- H.P. Lovecraft_

The curious thing about back country roads is that no matter how "improved" that the map says that it is they are invariably substandard pitted lanes of rocks, dirt, and broken axles. Coupled with the facts that the Government vehicle, which isn't even properly built for function let alone comfort, was stuffed to the gills with a precarious mixture of Kevlar, flesh, matte-black riot guns, and rather studly looking team of the FBI's Hostage Rescue Team, Special Agent Seeley Booth's mood can be most accurately surmised to be "disgruntled." "There are not enough swear words in the English language to accurately describe," Booth thought in a rather petulant tone "just how uncomfortable traveling in a military style vehicle is when you're loaded with battle-rattle and the passenger capacity for the vehicle is 'Always room for one more.'"

*Wham*

"Damn it that fucking hurt!"

"Son of a bitch these roads are shit!"

"And the driver is a goddamn moron!"

"Hendricks get your elbow out of my ear!"

"Well excuse me Travis but if you haven't noticed we're a little packed in tight here so why don't you quit bitching!"

Amid the squawking and curses of a dozen large men crammed into a small metal truck Booth tries to relax amid the pleasant glow of the red overhead light. The only benefit to such a merry colored illumination was the fact that it didn't impair low-light visibility like white light does; that being said the ghoulish and devilish shadows playing across his compatriots faces' were particularly disturbing; twisting and dancing across their faces and melding into black clothing in a sinuous play of a witches sabbath. The low heavy bass from the rumbling roads keeps getting louder as they continue driving down the increasingly broken road, a *tom-tom* rumble on an increasingly steady beat.

As the truck bumps along the broken road the idle chatter amongst the occupants begins to die down as they all started to realize that the thumping of the bass was not coming from the vehicle.

"What the..." awe and fear plays across a chiseled pale face, mouth slightly open with a dry tongue lightly touching a constricted throat.

A harrowing beat rumbles through the waving pines assaulting the senses of the unwelcome intruders approaching the source of such unnerving messengers. The sound and the fury of an awakening beast batters down all barriers erected in haste to prevent its coming.

The screeching of metal against metal signaled that they had reached the drop off point; close enough to the objective to move out on foot but far enough away to not give themselves away. As Booth and his men exit with gleeful haste from the crowded vehicles he can't help but notice how the branches of the pine trees seemed to twist and bend in strange macabre shapes in the surprisingly bright moonlight.

Wordlessly the phalanx of police gathers up, 25 men carried in to the woods by two trucks with a veritable convoy of support vehicles on call a mere 15 minutes away. Clad in matte-black riot gear Booth waves his hand to signal the team to start to move out towards the source of the deafening drums. His nerves betray him as he licks his tongue over dry lips.

Silent curses are muttered as the men stumble through the woods, tripping over dark ugly roots and working their way through the snares of green briar. Piles of dank stones and rotting fragments of dead trees create hidden obstacles in the wiry undergrowth and damp leaves. Any noise that the men make is swallowed up in the beating of the drums and... something else. There's something else being carried in the wind.

Fungus encrusted trees and evil looking branches beset the men on all sides as they plunge forward into the darkness; the moon's light twists and obscures everything that it touches as the shadows dance and play in mocking forms. Leafy branches form hanging nooses in the creeping darkness and baleful light.

The lack of animal life quite possibly creates the most distress in the back of Booth's mind. He's used to moving through the woods at night and there's always signs of animals: deer, opossum, squirrels, coyotes, and what have you, but in these woods there's nothing. It's as if life has fled from this place.

Only madness or poetry can give even the barest hints at the noises that Booth begins to hear. Without words he can tell that the men to his left and right are beginning to quaver in the face of this... unknown. A red glare is evident in the deepening twists and tangles of the forest and the echoes of the drums are mixed with a cacophony of noises which defy categorization. There are vocal tones unique to the tongues of men and there are guttural cries whom belong to the throats of beasts; when one gives way to the other with no rhyme or reason and with no break or shift... Booth's hackles and hair raise in the face of the unnaturalness of the situation.

Shrieks and bellows rend the air in a whirlwind of bestial fury and the stench of orgiastic license is pungent in the fetid air. Demonic howls and groans of unbearable ecstasy and torment flow forth from the glare as a tempest flowing from the mouth of Hell. And yet these noises aren't the worst of the things that assault Booth's ears. As he moves closer he can pick up the twisted lines of a barbaric chant whose ululations climb and fall in a chorus of horse voices a hideous phrase which conjures up fears within himself that he did not know or could conceive that he could ever have.

The voices keep chanting this line over and over as Booth's team starts to break through a thinner line of trees; the fires are distinct now as well as the twisting forms of a diabolical orgy.

As the team bursts upon the scene with Booth in the lead, four of his men faint at the spectacle before them and half a dozen of the others freeze in abject terror hypnotized by the mad cacophony.

In a clearing about an acre in size five fires blazed with intense heat and light and around a monstrous totem a writhing mass of what can, only in form, be called humanity brayed and bellowed to the fires and night. Naked and bestial these people prance, dance, and fornicate with abandon and yet they keep up their steady chant:

"Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!"

The endless bacchanal roars in defiance of everything that Booth knew to be right and good. If evil could have a smell the stench of it here would be overwhelming. Overcoming the cold chill of fear deep within his belly Booth lets loose a wordless yell as he signals for his men to rush in and break up the madness. The crack of riot guns and the cold steel of batons preceded the keel of the police phalanx as it crashes through the crowd creating a wake of bruised, bloody, and subdued cultists.

The din and chaos is beyond description as unnatural screams and shrieks punch through the night as more and more cultists are beaten down to the ground; Booth notices that not a single one of them fails to have whole swatches of dried blood on their naked bodies, many had their entire mouths covered in red but only a few of them show evidence of bruises or cuts even after the police made their way through.

A shadow suddenly darts across the moonlit clearing and Booth looks up into the sky in haste swearing that he can hear the leathery beat of wings.

But all he can see is the moon, naked and leering. Ringed by a consort of stars and wreathed in endless blackness.

Muttering he signals to the support elements to rush in to process the scene and to take away the cultists.  
***********************************************************************************************************************************************

It takes the better part of an hour to secure the scene even with the back up that was called in. Dozens of techs run about in their blue garments taking pictures and samples of anything and everything. Wearily Booth leans against the side of an FBI van, his men captured 57 prisoners and had already begun to transport them back to FBI holding cells. All of the prisoners were strangely subdued in their imprisonment despite the initial struggle for after only a minute of resistance it turned into a rout with, Booth was certain, dozens fleeing into the woods and escaping capture.

Steam rises from his breath as he wipes his brow, his hand glistening with captured sweat and streaked with dirt and grime.

He sees with clarity the gruesome statue that caps the wooden totem at the center of the clearing. A small sculpture about eight inches in height but even in this flickering light Booth could tell that it was exquisitely made by a master artisan of exceptional skill. The subject was some sort of monster with an octopus-like head whose feelers were wrapped around a rather scaly but rubbery looking body whose wicked fore and hind feet were capped with claws. Long sinuous wings sprouted from this creatures back as it crouched on it's pedestal resplendent in a malignant evil and bloated corpulence. The wings touched the base of the sculpture and the creatures claws seemed to grip the base of the pedestal; it seemed to lean forward on its perch as if ready to leap into the air and take flight. The subtle detail of this thing made it horrifyingly life-like; the artisan had to have been maddeningly twisted to conceive of something this terrible and great Booth thought.

As Booth stood examining the statue he missed the approach of a rather agitated looking Marcus Geier.

"Hey Booth we have something here that you need to see." Startled Booth straightened up too quickly and almost stumbled off the van before he caught himself.

"Alright show me." Booth was troubled by the haunted look on the tech's face; techs were like paramedics, they were often the most jaded people ever because they saw exactly what people were capable of doing to each other in the most intimate ways. The fact that even a veteran tech like Geier was disturbed by what he'd found slightly unnerved Booth.

Tramping over through the beaten down grass Geier led Booth to a small depression that ringed the totem; upon a brief look Booth turned around and proceeded to collapse onto the ground heaving up his guts like a drunk at 4 in the morning.

Piles of bones covered in a patchwork of torn flesh and caked blood ringed the depression and even from where he was Booth could see the scrapes and marks of gnawing teeth; all the bones were small, too small for an adult and even with his amateurish knowledge he could identify a mixture of male and female skeletons. Bones would be so proud that he had paid attention to her when she was explaining to him all the bone markings and the different skeletal indicators.

The red stains on the cultists mouths have a damming significance now in this new light. Booth's jaw contorts in fury.

"We haven't even begun to count how many..." Geier chokes up as bile climbs his throat and can't even finish the sentence but the significance is blatant in its implications. Booth recovers and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand as he stands up and looks over the pit again his chocolatey brown eyes darkening into twin pools of black rage.

"Give me the evidence Geier, give me the evidence so that all of these fuckers fry." without waiting for a response Booth stumbles over to the vans his fist vainly clutching the air at his side. As he passes by the pair of drums that the cult had used he stops in his tracks and his blood drains from his face. The skeleton of the drums was an expert mix of crafted wood, expertly carved by a careful hand. The skin of the drums was... skin. Human skin. Also expertly carved by a careful hand. The moon's baleful light illuminating this horrid treasure in a demonic halo in the most horrible parody of angelic beauty.

**AN: Just remember that reviews are like crack to writers. They're addictive and make us work faster.**


	5. A Push

**AN: It's been awhile since I've updated but that's the way things go when you travel across the country and get put into menial labor positions. Standard boilerplate on copyright infringement, don't sue me, blah blah blah. For those of you who still read and even fewer who review I welcome you to another installment of this unusual literary work. Enjoy!**

"_'But I don't want to go among mad people,' Alice remarked. _

_'Oh, can't help that,' said the Cat. 'We're all mad here, I'm mad. You're mad.' _

_'How do you know I'm mad?' said Alice. _

_'You must be,' said the Cat, ' or you wouldn't have come here.'"_

_-Lewis Carroll_

It's amazing how quickly darkness can set in even in a city of millions; night falls swiftly and the mice wave pitiful globes of fire to ward off the swooping hawk. Driving down the streets of D.C. At two in the morning just reinforces the uneasy feeling of foreboding in the narrow recesses of Temperance Brennan's mind. As warm as these august nights are in Washington s tingling chill doesn't fail to tip-toe up her spine, a symptom of exhaustion and frustration she figures. The events of the past few days have overwhelmed even her seemingly inexhaustible countenance driving her to seek the solace of both carafe after carafe of bad coffee and the solitude of her home.

With heavy lids her eyes barely keep a watch on the road. "I'll be home soon." she keeps telling herself. Only a couple more minutes and then she can allow herself to collapse on her bed whose appealing characteristics are magnified a hundred-fold in the wake of almost 72 hours of continuous work.

Out of habit she glances up at her window to see if the light is on, more than once Booth has greeted her in her own home with takeout, beer, and a million-watt smile; her face shows a bit more exhaustion and sadness at the sight of a darkened window. The click of her shoes across sun-bleached asphalt strike as loud as thunder in the night with a pale illumination from her apartment building substituting for lightning.

A cool touch on the back of her neck...

With a fighter's instinct she whips about to see-

nothing. The parking lot is devoid of life with only the outlines of mechanical wonders to show her any sort of deviation from the asphalt's melding with the night.

"It's only the wind, sleep deprivation is causing adrenaline to be made to overcompensate my exhaustion in response to potentially frightful stimuli." her words are calm and rational but ring hollow in her ears. The clicks increase in tempo as she makes her way to the door.

It's almost a relief for her as she steps into the well lit lobby of her building, although deserted the glow of the lights re-assure her.

The tension and adrenaline seeps from her body as she plods up to her apartment, with each step the desire to collapse on the floor and sleep grows and grows; it's all she can do to slide her key into the lock. The slight scraping and click of the tumblers falling into place as she plows through the door and threshold rather than step through it.

Her body runs on autopilot as she closes and locks the door behind her, without even bothering to turn on the lights she starts to make her way towards the siren sound of her silent bed.

Something breaks her off from this intended course. A sound.

Her apartment isn't how she left it.

As her pupils widen in the darkness she spots a dark outline which breaks the contours of her couch in the living room.

A man.

A rather large man.

The rays of the lights outside glint off of something in his hand.

Fear and rage run hot in her veins burning away the cobwebs and restraints that sleep intended to place upon her.

Her heart pounds and fists clench as the figure towers in the darkness.

**********************************************************************************************************************

Logic, reason, empiricism. The trinity of Science. Comforting in the past and even under the unusual circumstances of the present for Zack Addy. A brilliant mind devoted to the catechism of Empirical Science whose faith in logic was unquestioned.

Until...

The pain of falling from Grace outstrips even the very real and very painful experience of physical mutilation. The endless smoldering of burnt flesh rent by the sharp agonies of raw nerves exposed to every touch of malignancy and friction after their coverings were chewed away by a child of flame whose creation they undertook. And yet it couldn't hold a candle to the sun that was this simple phrase: "There is a fault in my logic."

Buried beneath the still surface a tumult of emotions whose mere existence was at odds with his adherence to Science and logic. Rationality was buffeted by emotion. Buried experiences and feelings rent open their shallow graves and beat their hands too a bloody pulp against the walls of the ivory tower sending ripples and cracks throughout the entire edifice.

The question is what happens when, not if, when it cracks open?

The psychic toll of his years of social awkwardness, his tour with Mortuary Affairs in Iraq, his self-contained Golgotha upon his return, and finally the circumstances which landed him into this psychiatric ward.

The cup brims with liquid.

The nightmares invade his sleep; the very tenets of empiricism tell him that the terror is real and unreal at the same time. A contradiction.

The liquid is over the edge but doesn't spill. Not yet. One more drop and it will cascade forth.

It's funny where the final push comes from.

One of the few things that he does in his days anymore is to pore over medical books, neglecting his prior passions for pure science and engineering. If he can find a rational medical explanation for the welts on his neck which he is scrupulous to ignore as much as possible, then he'll be able to relax in the knowledge that there is a perfectly logical reason for it's presence. Something clicks in Zack's head when he turns the page to see a citation to Edward Henderson's _Compendium of 17th Century Folk Medicine_ which barely hints at unusual welts and marks on persons with no obvious cause.

Stiffly he gets up from his seat in the library and wanders into the stacks. His long brown locks wave slightly in the breeze of cool dry air being moved about by the fitful efforts of aged fans. Zack is faintly thankful that his psychiatric institute is connected to such a large educational establishment; at times being under the eye of medical students is disruptive to his thought process but the benefit of having access to such a large and well stocked library makes up for it.

His footsteps are muffled both by his soft shoes and the carpeted floor. The musky smell of age wafts from the warp and weave of a dark red and brown carpet whose designs are complimented by the occasional stain of a graduate student's coffee. The only things that mark him apart from a student searching for books in the stacks is the brilliant white shirt and pants that he is forced by convention to wear but it is a small thing and the various wanderers know him by now after over a year of him consuming the knowledge within tomes both crisp and new from a fresh printing and those leather-bound compendiums whose mere presence screams of lore long forgotten.

As he turns the final corner into a corridor filled with older books dimly lit by a pair of dusty overhanging lamps he hears the faint rumbling of something in the innards of the ceiling, a dim sense of apprehension claws its way to his face as he remembers in perfect detail his dreams.

Back here the fans can't reach and the library staff have long ago neglected noticing the little collections of dust which coat the books and permeate the stagnant air.

Zack notices a curious book out of the periphery of his eye, as he glances towards it he can't help but stop and give it his full attention.

It's a dark leather bound text with a title inscribed in Latin across the mold eaten cover; the hue of bleached parchment slivers out from the lexicon. This book is obviously ancient and rightfully belongs in a rare books collection but it's simple title beckons out to Zack and begs him to not bring this to the attention to the library staff.

_"Suus Vita Alhazred"_

"The life of Alhazred," Zack mutters to himself in his isolation "what a strange title. It must be a biography of some sort."

Reaching for the tome Zack's ears register that a pipe overhead starts to creak with strain.

The touch of rough leather underneath the scars of his fingers-

-the rough touch of windblown sand rasping over his cheeks. Zack suddenly finds himself surrounded by trackless acres of rocks and sand; a figure in the desert lit by the baleful glow of the moon, dark rocks litter the fine sand making jutting outcroppings in the endless shifting wastes. There's another presence nearby. Zack's eyes go wide in fear as he beholds what he knows cannot be true but also knows that it is true; a dark wanderer roams the wastes before him. The dark vermillion and jet robes swathe a gigantic figure of at least 3 meters tall his exact dimensions hidden under their bulk. What the robes fail to hide is an overwhelming air of malevolence and power which clothes the wanderer more completely than any set of robes.

A chill washes over Zack causing him to involuntarily cry out.

The wanderer turns to face the source of the sound and with mighty strides overcomes the treachery of the desert sands. A parting in the robes around the head hint at a face...

This time Zack screams-

-water is pouring from the ceiling, a pipe must have burst. Zack finds himself screaming as ice cold water cascades down and soaks him to the bone. Without conscious thought he pulls the tome into his arms and bends over to shield it from the water and runs from that dark corner of the library and towards the light.

******************************************************************************

Later in his room freshly changed into a new set of clothes he ponders the event only to find himself filled with equal parts curiosity and dread.

His clothes were soaked through to the point of being ruined by the stream of water.

But the book on his bed is dry.

As dry as the bones that he used to immerse his time and energy in, the dryness is... comforting.

He picks up the tome and moves over to his small desk to read it, turning his back to the rows of texts and treatises which comforted him in the past.

He barely notices that the sun is setting as he cracks open the cover and begins to read the Latin inscriptions.

A trophy beside his bed which had previously glowed in the reflection of the sun and light is as dim and flat as a piece of coal and a speck of corrosion blemishes the surface of a worn harmonica.

Zack doesn't even notice that the lights seem to dim as he sounds out and speaks aloud the long forgotten words that his eyes play across.

**AN: Reviews would be most appreciated.**


	6. Marked

**AN: ::standard claim on how I do not own Bones or the works of HP Lovecraft and I'm not making any money off of this:: Sorry all for the incredibly long time it has been since I last updated but I've been extremely busy with training as of late what with driving across the country and all that. If you haven't figured it out yet Zack is going to be a main character in this and his role will probably be more important than our beloved B&B. I will say right now that pretty much anything you read in this story will not be canon but what the heck. I'd appreciate thoughts on this so review please.**

"_To think that the spectre that you see is an illusion does not rob him of his terrors: it simply adds the further terror of madness itself – and then on top of that the horrible surmise that those whom the rest call mad have, all along, been the only people who see the world as it really is." C.S Lewis_

Time shifts and blood pounds; the pulse of a stout heart raging against the spectre before it bringing a purging fire to wash away the sharp chill of fear. Blood sings in her ears as Temperance Brennan hurls her purse towards the dark figure; the chill of the now bare flesh shorn of a soft leather pressure is sharp in face of her heating veins. Fingers of dry and slightly red skin clench hiding the red damage from chemicals and sterile gloves with the red flush of danger. A stray strand of hair whips across her forehead.

The plush fibers of her carpet muffle the impact and cacophony of her strides within their deep blue embrace. A small voice in her mind muses how she might have to replace her carpet again if there is bloodshed on her floor. The pleasurable pain from her tinging muscles rocket her towards the figure; time seems to slow for her and her vision to tunnel. A ring of darkness crowds in on her sight haloing her target in an imperturbable circle.

The figure raises it's arms over it's head in a protective gesture in the face of the hurtling silver leather purse. The rasp of impact is punctuated by the soft tinkle of spare change and the rustle of meticulously stored receipts and business cards. A small brass clasp lets go and sparkles in the moonlight as it flutters in the night. The glitter in the figure's hand flies up into the air blurring in the reflections of the baleful moon.

It is exhilarating to feel this release of blood lust and adrenaline Brennan thought, karate classes and practice ranges normally give enough of a rush but after years of working in the field with Booth had given her a taste for something more, something... illicit and dangerous.

Her rapid rush seemed to have surprised her adversary as his actions thus far seemed to have been purely reactive but his sheer size worried her, she had to finish this fast or else she'd be overwhelmed. She could feel the elastic unraveling of her muscles and the twist of her shoulder and back as she extended her right fist for the first-

*snap*

it was an audible sound as the figure's arm moved impossibly fast and grabbed her wrist in an iron vice. The pressure on her wrist turned to pain as the figure started to twist and chicken wing her arm behind her as he sidestepped. The rough cotton of his shirt rubbed against her skin as a sharp pain shot up her right arm. She didn't hear but rather felt the pops of her joints as they were pulled and twisted out of shape. A harsh tight pressure against her back as the figure pulled her close to him to prevent her struggling.

The blood in her ears sings even louder now, a choir of rage and control bringing forth a melody that drowns out the ocean waves.

She doesn't even think about doing it.

With a sudden cry she snapped back with her neck slamming her head backwards into her assailant's nose. Through the matted and tangled layers of her hair she felt the cartilage bend against her assault and felt a hot drip against her scalp. A harsh coppery tang seemed to infuse her nostrils as his blood wafted through the air.

This seemed to startle her attacker as his grip weakened... she felt the slide of calloused fingers slacken across her wrist and forearm.

Twist now Brennan and face him down her mind cried!

Unfortunately her feet and legs got tangled up in her assailant's. Time stretches into infinity as she falls to the ground. Her eyes aren't focusing on the brick fireplace mantle directly beneath her; the harsh mixture of reds and browns twisted with the haunted shadows of the night and outlined with pitted ivory strips mean nothing to her.

The glittering shape cascading down to the floor catching the moonlight.

As her head connects with the brick she sees the object strike the floor and shatter and with it a spray of liquid.

The striking harshness of whiskey floods her senses mixing with the pain just before even the light of the moon goes out and she sees only darkness.

***********************************************************************************

_The dark wanderer visited me in my dreams in terrible guise and haunting forbearance. Robes of vermillion and jet infused with hues beyond the ken of mortal mind and thought swathed a beast of terrible power and malevolence. As disfigured as I was and as bare in my dreams to the harshness of the wastes as I was in reality I shied away from the horrible visage in fear and loathing. Indeed my own wrecked body was Allah's own favored work in comparison to the wanderer's portrait. His voice was the sound of scarab beetles and locusts singing their vile verses to daemons and djinn of fell reputation. The words promised so much for as wrecked a soul as mine for one who consumes the flesh of other men let alone the unborn flesh of one's own blood is damned._

As the lazy light of the moon illuminated the yellowed parchment before him Zack tirelessly devoured the words before him. The words of Alhazred rang a chord within him that he didn't know that he had had. Admittedly the crimes, punishments, and mutilations of Alhazred far surpassed those of his own but that did not dispute the kinship that he felt towards him. Even Alhazred's pursuit of necromancy rang familiar with Zack's own passion for knowledge of forensic's.

These parallels weighed heavily on his mind but not in the way that he would have used to think about it. Instead of focusing his mind on the fact that talk about magic and sorcery were impossible he pondered on the parallels between forensics and necromancy and their possible connections.

These thoughts whirled about in a specious conglomeration within the vast confines of his intellect meshing and mixing, dividing and changing. The possibilities the possibilities...

As drowsiness crept up behind him and swiftly claimed him his brain kept it's focus more on the dark occult words within the text and less on the logic and reason of science that he was trying to compare it to.

*********************************************************************************

"Why am I so cold?" Zack says aloud to the world the world being deaf to his concerns as the wind swallows up his query into the vast inky night. The sand is cool and grainy underneath his feet. In the sky a million pinpricks of light form and dance plotting out a map of constellations and astronomical phenomena. On a whim Zack looks up to study the sky.

His brow furrows in confusion.

There are no constellations in the sky, at least none that he recognizes and given some of his studies into astronomical phenomena he prides himself on recognizing almost every single constellation on record.

"Confused little one?"

The harsh rattle of a thousand chattering talons and the frenzied rubbing of chitinous wings grates with a piercing instinctive revulsion on Zack's senses.

He whips about in astonishment as the dark wanderer of both his and Alhazred's dreams stands before him dwarfing him. His massive stature is only magnified by the heavy flowing robes of vermillion and jet. Infused within the silk and linen are countless patterns and shapes whose colors seem to swim and swirl within the fabric. The wanderer's face is hidden behind a veil of pure white lace shot through with rubies whose iridescence sparkle like fresh blood in the brilliant moonlight. His hands are hidden in his voluminous robes which also hide his feet from Zack's astonished eyes.

"Oh do not be alarmed for you are still on your pitiful little world you are just viewing a night sky that is much older than you can possibly imagine of an event that you have never contemplated being possible." his haughty declaration struck Zack as ludicrous but... he didn't recognize any constellations and there were only two ways that that was possible. One he was in the past, so far back in the past that the Earth had yet to align itself with the stars in the sky. Or he was seeing the sky of an entirely different world which just so happened to have the same atmospheric qualities as Earth. Or he could just be dreaming a very strange dream.

Only a small part of him hoped it was a dream.

Suddenly he was in the air his feet kicking helplessly into the cool desert air. The grip of an impossibly strong hand swathed in silk held him around the throat. He stared at the glittering veil in front of him.

"So much potential," the wanderer whispered "shall I show you mysteries that you never conceived of existing young one? Shall I impart on you knowledge lost through impossible stretches of time and teach you things that you could never have been taught before? Or should I just torment you and take you apart for my own fickle pleasure?"

These words shocked Zack to his core for certainly this was insane and impossible. If he just woke up from this impossible dream then it would alright.

But within him a stirring at the thought of knowing.

"A suitable answer young one," the malicious glee within the chorus of blasphemies was obvious to Zack who was startled at both his desire to know and how this... creature knew that he wanted to know. "now be kind and scream for me."

With those words the wanderer raised his free hand, his right hand, and from the folds...

Zack's screams of terror pierced the night as he saw the beast beneath the silk brocade.

The press of abomination upon his neck over the raised puckered scar tissue; the burning pain was beyond anything that Zack could have ever believed that he could sustain and still remain conscious. The smell of charring flesh wafted into his nostrils like pork but sweeter.

The agony overwhelms until-

***************************************************************************

Gasping Zack startles awake from his chair. It was a dream it was just a dream. Wearily he clambers into his bed but despite his exhaustion sleep is a long time in coming.

******************************************************************************

In the sterile and empty darkness, silence of the basest and most dreadful sort suffocates the pitiful sounds of a broken soul as breath is squeezed through the cracked and dry skin of painfully pale lips. Hooded eyes conceal mirrors of a broken intelligence; skin drawn tight, a glow of pale phosphorescence in the tangibly thick blackness. The soft padding on the bed doesn't conceal the stiff hardness underneath for there are some things which can always be felt regardless of settings; a thin veneer of the simplest primer over the twisted, rusted metal of a broken monolith.

Suddenly the skin withdraws showing a flowing mix of white, gold, brown and red. The expanding pupils opening up to gather in all the fleeting elements of light that flee the encroaching darkness like frightened gray hares before the white foaming mouth of the ravenous wolf. Zack lies there cowering in the dark curled up in the fetal position with his eyes ever widening; pale soft fingers clutching and clawing at cold and clammy cheeks as this dream occurs yet again. Blood drains fast in the face of mounting terror for knowing what is going to happen is far worse than being suprised.

He can hear the noises approaching; skittering within the walls, the scratching of claws and talons on the ancient innards of the dead structure holding the mortal prisons of mad souls. His rationality and logic are being discarded more and more simply being replaced with emotional terror; the fetid and corrupt smell of bleak sickness and death's hand-maidens flows forth from the walls and vents. The door to the enclosed darkness shudders under a sudden impact, mere inches of metal and plastic groaning under impossible strain and violence. The chittering and clacking of talons, the squeals of depraved vermin; a thousand assailants and a thousand invaders pouring over the fallen battlements of the bastion of logic.

Deep within himself he knows that this isn't real, he knows that this is just a dream like the one with the dark wanderer. Soundlessly he screams, they rasp along a parched throat only to be lost in the cacophony. Fear inspires a paralysis of conscious movement within the meaty shell of a lunatic mind; the bed rattles under the flailing spasms as he tries to hide from the omniscient marauders whose approach inspires dread.

Unknowable force pummels the door as bends and cracks spread in an insane spiderweb along the cold steel. Cracks appear ushering in a luminous aurora of lights whose intrusion causes even the darkness to flee in on itself. The cold comfort of hazy purples, blues, and reds chills the air; ice forms, falls, and shatters on the floor in a cascade of glimmering shards whose edges slice the cool tile floor etching eldrich sigils under the guide of an invisible hand. The scratches within the walls grow louder and more insistent; the man's eyes see lines appear in the walls as the assault continues with tireless abandon.

The cold sweat from his brow drips into his eyes but blinking is impossible as his eyes are fixated on the intruding lights; the nebulous haze showing brief glimpses into realms of impossible and terrible description.

A figure flashes in the haze.

The luminous green of sickly description; glassy eyes of a gangrenous corpse leap from the void to grasp the man's shrieking form. A six pointed star burning with devilish fury emblazoned upon a rotting breast.

As the monster leaps towards him Zack picks himself up off the bed and throws out his arms to protect himself, a futile defense as his assailant merely grabs his arms and pins them against his sides. Zack braces himself for the pain and the bite of death.

As the monster moves towards his bared throat it suddenly stops. It stoped.

And then it screamed.

The wail of a million tortured souls rends the air like paper and suddenly the beast threw itself back into the glowing circle of sigils as if it were trying to flee from Zack. Astonished Zack takes a step back and sits back down on his bed slowly rubbing his wrists where he was restrained...

******************************************************************************

-his eyes open and he's back in his bed sitting up absently rubbing his wrists. He walks over to his sink and mirror to splash water on himself, he must still be dreaming right? Almost as if by accident he glances into the mirror at his neck. His jaw drops.

The scars are gone, no longer is there any hint of any sort of wound, the skin is pristine.

Zack breathes deep and exhales a shuddering breath at this astonshing turn of events. Only to cough as the smoky smell of burning flesh hits his nostrils.

**AN: Hopefully you enjoyed reading that. Review please.**


	7. Purpose

**AN: Apologies for the long wait but I've been occupied for the past weeks doing what my profession demands. The standard disclaimers as to ownership apply in this chapter as in all the others I've written in this fiction. My goal in writing is to get you the reader to imagine the words coming to life and playing out like a movie in your mind; HD or Blue-ray is totally up to you but it does help if you think of this as a movie rather than a book in many respects. I hope that you enjoy this installment and that you can sit back and imagine the scenes described in front of you.**

At daemon, homini quum struit aliquid malum, Pervetit illi primitus mentem suam. (But the devil when he purports any evil against man, first perverts his mind.)- Euripides

::Blink::

The cascading feeling of sand washing away against a receding tide reveals intensely sharp rocks underneath. The pain she feels is excruciating in breadth and scope sweeping the fugue and haze of unconsciousness before it in a slow rolling maelstrom bringing with it the wakening lights of opening eyes.

She feels a wetness too, has this storm brought with it the rain to wash from her a parched sense of malaise?

The thunder of this storm is a mute and hollow sound whispering forth a deep sense of loss and sadness, she thinks this curious for what great and powerful force could find itself capable of such a timid roar as it rains?

She remembers herself as a child looking up at the clouds to find hidden shapes and wonders within their depths from the flighty wisps skimming across an endless pond of blue to the dark inkblots who contain both fire and water within.

These clouds have a shape for all their darkness and forbearance. Not even the darkest tempest strewn night can hide what they contain within from one Temperance Brennan. This shape...

The thunder whispers...

Why do the clouds move and shift? The wonder and astonishment of this phenomena consumes her awe.

::Blink::

Ivory white skin drawn tight over hard features carved with a canal of tears glistening in an illuminating moon. Lips drawn thin in horror whose sole color comes from a thin trickle of rubies from a bent and twisted nose. His throat constricting and spasmodic under the strain of plaintive whispers and roaring sobs.

Through the haze she recognizes him. Temperance Brennan is horrified as the realization strikes her.

"Booth?" a croaking whisper slinking out of a maze of pain and despondency.

"Bones? Oh God Bones." The pain hits her again amongst his babbling; for a man blessed with such charisma and charm she realizes that he can be quite incoherent and rambling when giving an apology.

"Booth... what are you... was that... why are you..." her mind while normally sharp and organized is jumbled up and wrecked. The pain pulses like a heart beat across her head and body.

She the glitter of the glass on the floor, the undercurrent to Booth's fevered breathing burning it's way up her nose.

Suddenly the tense and muscled arms and coarse hands cradling her body feel less like a cradle of comfort and reassurance and more like a rickety bridge desperately trying to hold her up. The glistening copper on Booth's face streaked with tears of guilt and shame tell her things that even he hoped to hide from her. The stench of whiskey mixed with salty tears is a vitriolic tonic spurring her from the troubled embrace of her atoning partner.

"Why?" The short and direct question is all that she needs to ask as she gingerly picks herself up off the cold red bricks; more red now than before she notes which strikes discord in her normally warm feelings towards her partner. That single "Why?" is packed with a confused amalgam of fear, curiosity, anger, betrayal, and animosity. Her heart sings with pain as she watches him physically flinch at her verbal stab.

The curious mussing of his hair and the glazed look shining over the brown pools in his eyes convey more than what his simple words are able to.

"I... I needed to see you... to talk to you." his words, broken and steeped in tears, entice her heart and feelings towards him towards sympathy and a desire to hold him saying everything is alright and brushing away the tears with her gentle hands.

The pain pulses again scattering these desires with the cold hard realization that she and Booth had just attacked each other; drunkenness or sleep induced confusion it matters not they came to blows the fact remains of an ultimate perversion of their deep and intimate partnership. Plus much to her consternation and pride she was the one that ended up down for the count.

"Bones I just wanted to say... there is no excuse I can ever give you but I... after yesterday... I couldn't take it anymore. I just- I can still see, I can still smell them... I didn't think. It was... it was... I never meant to... I just tried to make the dreams go away. Please forgive me I thought that, I tried to call you but... but... I thought you knew that I was here but- I thought." His hands reach for her pleading.

She can see the dark circles under his eyes, a darkness that her breaking his nose couldn't have caused yet. She finally see's just how disheveled he is, normally Booth is meticulous with his care of uniform and equipment; if it's brass it will shine like gold, if it's black it will be polished in such a way to defy any blemish.

The man before her is hunched over clad in black tactical gear patterned with the ground in debris of dirt and mud, a patch just below his left thigh is crumbling onto her floor as fissures are caused by his flexing muscles subtly hidden behind the worn fabric. She can see chips and scratches on the buttons fastening shut his breast pocket betraying flecks of silver and gray underneath the matte black paint. His collar is stained dark with sweat and grime, a slight rash on his neck drives home the point that he hasn't changed out of that uniform for at least a day. His normally steady and reassuring hands are mussed and shaking; dirt underneath chipped fingernails and a string of abrasions across his wrists where gloves chafed. His steady figure is bent like a condemned man asking for mercy shaking with barely concealed anguish.

Azure eyes give more acceptance and encouragement than the most eloquent prose; a confession elicited not with the burning iron of a red-masked brute but with a silent grace of long-forgotten myth. A granite set jaw cannot obscure the hidden wonders shrouded within the twin mirrors which gaze into a warm soul set on forgiveness.

"They told us that there were- were 50 missing children," his pale lips move barely forming the words as they are whispered into the darkness "we heard rumors... there were disturbances in the woods. Far beyond where the towns are or hikers go. Fires. Noises. We got a tip, some crazies were out there doing God knows what to these kids. We went into- Bones it was horrible the night it was... you could feel the- the unnaturalness of the woods. It was as if something was in the air. And then the noise... the _tom-tom _of the drums... _tom-tom... tom-tom_... like it was a church bell of some sort. Or a heartbeat of something..." Bones sees something that she thought that Booth's face couldn't express, terror "great... something terrible."

"When we broke through the woods and saw them it was like getting punched in the chest... all of us- just stopped and... we couldn't take our eyes away. It was horrible. The writhing maggot piles that Hodgins has in his lab are more appealing than that was. The bodies just... like a wave of pus seeping from a bloody wound. And the chanting... the chanting it just- it just got into your head and... it- it... oh God Bones... the chanting..."

Booth sobs a drunk's tears now but Brennan can tell that there is something else behind them. Instinctively she kneels down onto the floor and takes a sylvan hand and gently places it on his shoulder. The look in his eyes as he looks up is the twin to one of a drowning sailor who has just been pulled out of a sinking ship onto a rescuing vessel or of a soldier who has been on the losing side of a major engagement with the sound of artillery and the rattle of tank treads still haunting his mind.

"When it was over and we saw the scene up close we saw... we saw a totem with a trench dug around it. There were bones in it... so many bones. They were small bones. I could see the scrapes and marks on them. You'd be proud of me. I could tell that something chewed on the bones and ripped the flesh away. There was blood around the mouths and all over so many of the... the... people," this word he spat out like a curse "and I... I almost lost it right there. And the sculpture and the drums... the drums were terrible. Being made with human skin but the sculpture on top of the totem... I've... I've been having these nightmares of- of what I saw there. When I close my eyes I can see it. Perfectly."

"When I left... I just- broke." At this he sobs and averts his eyes from her and flinches away from her touch. This hurts her more than the knock on the head. "I started drinking. To dull the pain. I tried calling you but... I don't know what happened but I just couldn't bring myself to... I remember walking here to your home. Stumbling through the street holding a bottle like a bum like," his words turn into a deadly whisper "my father."

Brennan can feel the waves of shame and pain dripping off of Booth at this self flagellation; his pain oozes out of him like blood from wounds whose coppery tendrils continue to grow without retreat. She realizes that Booth probably has never felt so low or prostrate before now.

A part of Booth's mind tries to tell his mouth to stop talking but the rest of him demands that he continue this confession even though the pain it causes is unlike what he has ever born before.

"When I got here I just... I don't know what I was doing anymore I just... I just needed to dull the pain and the- to hide the dreams. And then you got here and... I don't know what happened but... suddenly you were on the floor bleeding. Bones- Oh God Bones... I-I, you must hate me now. I'm... just like my father I get drunk and then... then..."

All coherency leaves Booth at this point and he just kneels there before her a broken man.

She says nothing for nothing needs to be said. The silken gleam of ivory glistens with cut diamonds in the watery moonlight changed only with the subtle manipulations of tense muscles. Chiseled granite cast in a steel mold is illuminated only by the shadows as guilt consumes and constricts the tragic hero.

Sometimes a simple touch is all that is needed.

But sometimes...

simplicity is the most complicated thing in the world.

* * *

"_Nor is it to be thought that Man is either the oldest or last of the Masters of Earth nor that the greater part of Allah's creation is cast alone in life and substance. The Old Ones were, the Old Ones are, and the Old Ones shall ever be. They dwell not in realms traveled or even imagined by Man but in the spaces in between with the calm and patience of primal predators. Their Words have been spoken and their Rites howled in accord with astral Seasons beyond the ken of mortal Man. They shall come again to claim their old patrimony from mortal usurpers. They whisper from beyond the void ever preparing for the time that they can return."_

The burning haze of electric lights filtered through patterned plastic casts a comforting glow on these harsh inscriptions of an obviously, to Zack, lunatic mind. Zack knows that the ideas and claims put forth by Alhazred are ludicrous and fantastic and are obviously works of fiction.

Correction.

The old Zack knew that these claims are impossible and crazy. The new Zack, the one that was reading them now...

After what he has experienced in his dreams and visions and... and... the scars on his neck. Empirical evidence. He cannot ignore that. Instead he drinks down the vile liquid of a forbidden goblet of knowledge like it was sweet ambrosia.

For knowledge holds answers. Answers as to what has happened to him. Answers to what is happening to him.

He keeps reading on with tired eyes feverishly combing the parchment for clues and revelations but the writing of Alhazred are a maze of mysteries and hidden truths with implied meanings forgotten after aeons of history and strange rhyming couplets rife with double and triple meanings inter-spacing whole treatises of a vile and esoteric history.

"_That which is not dead but can eternal lie,_

_and in strange eons even death may die."_

Whispered messages and meanings unfathomable swirl about in the maelstrom of Zach's psyche. He can sense that his steady Titanic mind is bereft by any multitude of icebergs whose presence channels him further along casting him adrift in a sea of madness. He can smell the cyclopean cataclysm awaiting him along this path but he is consigned into casting himself into a watery grave of hidden truths and insanity unimagined because buried within the madness is...

He pauses.

"What is awaiting me along this path?" he muses out loud.

The lights flicker and a guttural sigh rattles through the still air of his sterile room. A rank miasma of decay wafts through his nose and a scalding fury of immolating metal gently caresses his cheek like a mother does to a son.

And he knows what he'll find.

Purpose.

He can feel how he's been cast adrift ever since he was ignominiously drawn into a world of perfectly flawed logic and then cast as the prodigal leper; welcomed with happiness back to a pantheon that is no longer, can no longer be, his. Even his blood kin can no longer embrace him with that forgotten warmth. Letters are few and far between and the words scribbled down on paper... they simply do not compare to... to this. This tome of paradigms and secrets unknown.

His eyes rove about until they are drawn to a passage of such unknown significance that he can not help but be entranced by its mystery. And by it's possible meanings.

"_The Elder Things sowed their seed in the shadows of foreboding Kadath in the Cold Waste from which they spread across the primaeval Earth. An empire built on semi-sentient herds of Soggoths whose servitude built great aquatic cities and mountain holds alike. Followers of Ancient and Terrible Gods united under a star of six points whose thirsts and desires are beyond knowing. The decadence of the latter generations of Elder Things after aeons of rule coupled with twin titanic struggles against Star-Spawn of Cthulhu and the Mi-go left them prostrate in the face of the cosmic changes in the Earth's climate. The creeping ice devoured them and has blessedly hidden their terrible aretefacts from Man's eyes. Many things are buried in the shadows of Kadath."_

Kadath.

This word holds Zack's attention in a strange bondage and his mind whirls at the possibilities. Where is this Kadath? Who were these Elder Things? What is hidden in the ice?

As he ponders these questions and continues to pour over the text looking for ephemeral clues to this mysterious riddle his notice drifts away from his surroundings or else he would notice that the rust on a harmonica seems to spread and the burnished hue of a trophy dims. These anchors are consumed destined to fade away in a gaping maw of a new unknown.

**AN: Reviews are nice and they help me write faster.**


	8. Realization

**AN: At long last an update to this rather unusual tale of macabre fantasy written by a sleep deprived workaholic. I apologize profusely to all who have read this tale thus far and who have been stymied in their desires to read more into the deranged writings of a lunatic mind but alas life it seems takes precedence especially when I can be put up on charges if I ignore my duties. Once again I submit to you that I do not own any of the intellectual property mentioned in this story and that I'm making no money off of this work of fiction. And now my friends let us go forward into this fascinating tale and hopefully you don't get to many disturbing thoughts from it.**

_Quivi sospiri, pianti e alti guai risonavan per l'aere sanza stelle, per ch'io al cominciar ne lagrimai. Diverse lingue, orribili favelle, parole di dolore, accenti d'ira, voci alte e fioche, e suon di man con elle facevano un tumolto, il qual s'aggira sempre in quell'aura sanza tempo tinta, come la rena quando turbo spira. (__Their sighs, lamentations and loud wailings resounded through the starless air, so that at first it made me weep; Strange utterances, horrible pronouncements, words of pain, tones of anger, voices shrill and faint, and beating hands, all went to make a tumult that will whirl forever through that turbid, timeless air, like sand that eddies when a whirlwind swirls.) _

_-_Dante's _Inferno__, Canto III_

The dance of faded words and the swirl of eldritch symbols and runes filled the hungry void of Zack's mind. So much to learn in a seemingly mad tome and yet he felt… something unusual. At the corner of every page he noticed the same symbol over and over. A scratch made into the vellum seemingly as an afterthought of what appeared to be a flaming eye emblazoned on a slanted pentacle. As his eyes glanced over the mark he experienced a slight pain across his neck. As the decrepit Latin flowed off his tongue his eyes kept being drawn toward the symbol; the pain would cause him to constantly falter and stumble over the words. Finally after a considerable time he put his hand over the symbol as he read a passage so his eyes would not be distracted.

"The Wanderer between the worlds brings with him the sweet decay of untold millennia. His presence alone marks this world older than we know. Yet for all his power that dwarfs men he is but a messenger of older Gods. The Great Sleeper in R'lyeh is served by this, his most ancient and unfaithful disciple. For he brings the gospel: 'Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn.'"

*Pop*

What a simple noise but one so out of place in the sterile lighted room of one Dr. Zack Addy with barely disguised annoyance he lifts his head up from the dry brittle pages under his rough raw hands. The knowledge soaks out of the tome through the dried and faded ink whose vermillion hue is a stark cousin to the sudden rush of blood thudding behind Zack's eyes.

Zack's eyes widen as he looks up from the pages and sees-

nothing.

The darkness is all consuming and absolute. Cognitively he realizes what a black hole must look like up close sans being ripped apart at the sub atomic level by gravitational forces. No hint of light pierces his sight.

"Am I blind or is this a dream?" He speaks aloud to the darkness.

…

"Why can't I hear what I said? I know I…"

"Why can't I… feel my… my senses… am I speaking? Why can't I feel anything?"

It isn't even a sense of numbness that consumes him simply… nothing.

It as if his brain is simply separated from his body; unable to send or receive messages but merely existing with his own thoughts. This terrifies Zack like nothing else ever did. It is a complete severing of any sort of empirical connection to the world outside his mind. Intellectually Zack knows that in the past even before his fall from grace his connections to other people were few and far between but when established those channels of connection ran deep and carried with them things of great value. Even with his incarceration and the gradual erosion and loss of even those few connections to other people that he had at least he could still feel the coarseness of his clothes and the gentle push of recycled air against his skin or hear the quiet murmurs of the psychiatric students as they tried to decipher the mysteries of damaged minds.

"About time delicious morsel. I while I may have spanned eons of existence I still loath waiting for each part of the awakening."

"Wait what is going on?" A piteous query into an uncaring darkness.

"Your fated part in something that even Gods fear, you will be the tool in the Great Awakening."

"Great Awakening? What? Tool? What is going on?"

Suddenly even in this disembodied state Zack feels his mind drifting away into unconsciousness. But before oblivion overtakes him he hears one last chilling response.

"Yes the Great Awakening, the Sleeper shall wake to the smell of what you shall spill for him."

*pop*

With a groan Zack opens his eyes…

And nearly passes out by what he sees.

Dirt, trees, green…

"Why am I in the woods? How did I get here?"

Then the smell hits him, a familiar odor but one much stronger as here there is no air system to dampen odors. It is at this point that Zack realizes that he's clothed from head to toe in dried blood over naked flesh. The red brown crust over his hands cracks as he sits up in alarm; flecks fly off his face and lips as he lets out an involuntary cry of horror.

His lips…

Suddenly the bile bellows forth from his stomach and the sound of his retching fills the dark muted wooded hollow that he finds himself in. The harsh odor of acid and vomit mingles with a sickening reek of blood and…

In the pool of vomit staring back at him is a partially digested phalange.

Zack's moan of disbelief and agony is lost in the silence of the wooded hollow ending only when his eyes fall across the book, its pages open and staring at him in gleeful anticipation. The last thing Zack notices before he passes out is that the red brown on his hands is the exact shade as the text on the pages.

**AN: It's been awhile and I can't promise a speedy update schedule but please read and review.**


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